Winter

by Rod Rees

  4. THE MANTLE

  Thank the Spirits!

  She typed “1.”

  BOUNDARY LAYER

  PARAMETERS THAT MAY BE AMENDED INCLUDE:

  1. DISTANCE FROM CENTER OF THE DEMI-MONDE®

  2. HEIGHT

  3. PENETRABILITY

  4. TACTILITY

  5. TRANSPARENCY

  Desperately trying to keep her hands from shaking, she typed in “3.”

  BOUNDARY LAYER

  YOU HAVE CHOSEN TO AMEND: PENETRABILITY

  IS THIS TO BE A LOCAL AMENDMENT? Y/N

  Yes, for the love of God, yes!

  PLEASE USE THE MUTOSCOPE VIEWER

  Ella did as she was asked and saw a map of the Demi-Monde displayed there. At the outer circumference of each District the Boundary was designated with a code, the code for the Warsaw District’s Boundary being WBL-1. Ella typed in the reference code.

  DO YOU WISH THE BOUNDARY LAYER WBL-1 TO BE MADE PENETRABLE? Y/N

  Yes, yes, yes . . .

  IN WHAT TIME FRAME (DEMI-MONDIAN REFERENCE) DO YOU WISH THIS AMENDMENT TO BE EXECUTED?

  Frantically Ella typed “IMMEDIATE.”

  CONGRATULATIONS ELLA THOMAS IN ACCORDANCE WITH PROTOCOL 57 YOU HAVE MADE AN EMERGENCY ONE-HOUR AMENDMENT TO THE PENETRABILITY OF THE BOUNDARY LAYER AT WBL-1. THIS AMENDMENT IS SUBJECT TO RATIFICATION BY THE DEMI-MONDE® STEERING COMMITTEE. IF SUCH RATIFICATION IS NOT RECEIVED THE AMENDMENT TO THE CYBER-MILIEU WILL BE ANNULLED IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE ONE-HOUR EMERGENCY PERIOD HAS ELAPSED.

  DO YOU REQUIRE ANY OTHER SERVICES? Y/N

  Ella typed “Y.” This was her chance to find out where the SS were going to take Norma Williams after Wewelsburg Castle, to find out where Crowley would conduct his Rite of Transference.

  THE DEMI-MONDE® IM MANUAL

  OPTIONS:

  1. LOCATE DUPE

  2. ADD DUPE

  3. DELETE DUPE

  4. AMEND DUPE CHARACTERISTICS

  5. AMEND DUPE PERCEPTIONS

  6. AMEND CYBER-MILIEU CHARACTERISTICS

  She pressed “1” and immediately she was asked:

  NAME OF DUPE TO BE LOCATED?

  It was then that she remembered that because she was a renegade Dupe, ABBA wasn’t able to track Norma Williams. Think . . .

  She had a stroke of inspiration.

  “AALIZ HEYDRICH,” she typed.

  The Transfer Screen whirled.

  DUPE AALIZ HEYDRICH IS LOCATED AT EXTERSTEINE.

  DEMI-MONDIAN COORDINATES SECTOR 1/N5˚W/6.5MILES

  Ella quizzed PINC regarding ExterSteine but again it let her down: it had no knowledge of the place.

  But even as she desperately tried to memorize the coordinates of ExterSteine there was another tremendous explosion from the front of the Bank, and Trixie, followed by her bedraggled fighters, staggered into the Banking Hall. She looked across to Ella. “Have you done it?” she shouted.

  “Yes,” replied Ella. “Just one more minute.”

  Trixie shook her head. “There are no more minutes. There’s nowhere to go and the SS are advancing. We’re trapped here. This is where we die.”

  “Perhaps not.” Ella turned back to the Transfusion Booth.

  “IT APPEARS THE REBELS HAVE CEASED FIRING, COMRADE COLONEL.”

  Archie Clement frowned. That wasn’t like the Rebs. As he’d seen over the past few weeks, these bastards fought like madmen, digging into every ruin, every cellar, every pothole and then fighting to the last man. Even his SS had been taken aback by their fanaticism and by how readily they were prepared to sacrifice their lives for their ridiculous cause. And it was all the fault of that bitch Trixie Dashwood.

  But who could have thought it would have been a seventeen-year-old girl who would stiffen Dabrowski’s spine? Even Beria hadn’t seen that one coming. Without her the Poles would have folded in a fortnight, just as they had planned they would. That bitch had a lot to answer for.

  “How long?” he asked.

  “They haven’t fired a shot for ten minutes.”

  “We got the steamers here yet?”

  “Just one, Comrade Colonel, the other was ambushed on Leshno. A couple of kids with firebombs . . .”

  Clement nodded grim acknowledgment and spat out a wad of tobacco. These Rebs were fucked more ways that a ten-bob whore but still the diehards fought on. Fucking suicide bombers; it was impossible to defend against Rebs who were prepared to sacrifice their lives to blow up steamers. And the attrition rate had been fearful: more than half the steamers employed in the Ghetto had been lost to booby traps and to incendiaries. The cost was ferocious and Horatio Bottomley was already sending letters of complaint to Crowley. Bottomley would just love it when he heard that the Rebs had retaken the Bank.

  Clement lifted his cap and ran a hand through his blond hair. Why the Rebs had attacked the Bank was beyond him; they must have known that he would never allow them to leave with any blood, they must have known it was all pointless. All they had succeeded in doing was making him look foolish.

  He kicked at a shell case, sending it skittering over the cobbles; that bastard Bottomley should get his fat arse down here to the Ghetto and help fight these lunatics, then he’d stop moaning about what the war was doing to his budget.

  He just hoped Beria’s ruse worked.

  “Get a squad together to advance under cover of the steamer.”

  “Shall I make sure they’ve got a flamer with them, Comrade Colonel? Might be best to burn the buggers out. They could just be lying doggo in there, waiting for a chance to ambush us. You know how sneaky these Polacks are. They’ve no honor. They’re just fucking animals.”

  What the SS captain was saying made sense. It was standard operating procedure that once a Ghetto building was taken it should be packed full of straw, the straw doused with lamp oil and the whole lot set alight, burning up the building and any Rebs hiding in it. But not the Bank; incinerate a Blood Bank and Bottomley would really lose his rag.

  “No, Comrade Captain, no burning. This has gotta be done real delicate. Damage the Transfusion Booths in the Bank and you’ll be busted down to private quicker than a goose shits beans.”

  The captain shouted his orders and ten minutes later the steamer rumbled up. After weeks of fighting, the steamers were unrecognizable as the sleek machines that had begun the campaign: extra armor had been bolted around the vulnerable boiler, the driver’s cabin had been swathed in mesh to stop firebombs and the body was covered in barbed wire to deter suicide bombers from leaping aboard. Now they looked like what they were: ugly and brutal killing machines.

  “Number Five Troop: get ready to let it rip,” yelled the captain. “Stay to the left side of the steamer. That’s the side furthest away from the Reb bastards who will be trying to blow your damn fool heads off.” He signaled the driver and with a lurch the steamer began to crunch toward the Bank.

  Clement clicked his fingers and his aide handed him his telescope. He made a careful study of the Bank but apart from the tattered curtains drifting aimlessly in the breeze and a broken front door flapping backward and forward there was no movement and certainly no sign of Rebs waiting to open fire. An uneasy feeling drifted down his spine. Could the bastards have escaped? He dismissed the idea; it was still two hours to dusk, there were no sewers running under the Bank and his forces had a complete view of the whole circumference of the building. It was impossible for the Rebs to escape without being seen.

  Maybe they’d simply decided they’d had enough. Maybe they’d committed suicide. Death before dishonor and all that.

  The steamer was already halfway to the Bank and nary a shot had been fired.

  Where were they? Maybe they were holed up in the Banking Hall. They’d know that the SS would be reluctant to fire in there.

  The steamer smashed into the side of the Commercial Center and as it scrabbled for grip its huge studded wheels gouged ruts into the granite pavement. For a minute or so it bucked and shoved in a futile demonstration of brute ignorance,
then the drive shaft was disengaged and it stood huffing and puffing in disgruntled impotence.

  Clement turned his telescope toward the crouching figure of the captain, watched him make a signal and his SS StormTroopers race around the stalled steamer firing as they went. There were no answering shots and after a few seconds the shooting petered out in an embarrassed sort of way.

  Silence.

  They couldn’t all be dead, could they? Maybe the place was booby-trapped. The Rebs were experts at that; every bloody door, every staircase, every body of a dead SS trooper was wired to a grenade. He’d lost hundreds of men that way. And the ones who survived knew to be cautious. He just hoped the captain was one of them.

  Apparently he was. The captain emerged from the Bank and signaled the all-clear.

  Clement frowned; it had been too easy. He gestured to his bodyguards, and once they had flanked him he began to walk across the square. He didn’t normally risk himself at the front line but in the case of a Bank he was prepared to make an exception. When he got to the Bank he saw that the front of it was a mess, with six bodies of Reb fighters lying on the ground amidst all the other detritus of war. The captain was standing sheepishly in the corner of the Commercial Center. “How many bodies, Comrade Captain?”

  “Just the six, Comrade Colonel.”

  “Six? So how many Rebs you reckon were holding this bombproof?”

  “I’m not sure, Comrade Colonel. They lost a hundred during their assault.”

  Clement used the toe of his boot to nudge the arm of one of the dead rebels. The red lettering on the white armband tied around it read “WFA-D.” The “WFA” Clement knew stood for “Warsaw Free Army” so the “D” presumably stood for “Dashwood.” Little Trixie Dashwood appeared to be becoming very full of herself.

  “The WFA-D is the Polacks’ best regiment, Comrade Colonel. We believe they were responsible for the seizure of the two barges that precipitated the attack on the Ghetto.”

  Clement nodded. “Any bodies in the Banking Hall?”

  The captain ushered Clement through to the huge hall, which, apart from a couple of shattered candelabra and the haze of cordite that had drifted through from the front of the building, was undamaged. And there wasn’t a soul—dead or alive—to be seen. “So where are all the Rebs, Comrade Captain?”

  “They’re not here, Comrade Colonel.”

  “Ah can fucking see that!” snarled Clement. “You trying to tell me that six Rebs held off five hundred SS StormTroopers for the most part of half an hour?”

  “Er . . . yes, Comrade Colonel.”

  “That’s real hard mouthing, Comrade Captain. You go around saying that one Reb is worth ninety-odd SS StormTroopers and you’re gonna earn yourself an invitation to a necktie party. That’s heresy.”

  The unfortunate thing from Clement’s point of view was that though it was heresy it was also the only logical explanation, unless of course the Rebs had a witch working for them, a witch who was very adept at making fighters disappear into thin air.

  EVEN ELLA WAS ASTONISHED WHEN SHE MANAGED TO CONJURE—literally—a manhole in the middle of the floor of the Transfer Hall. Everyone in the Demi-Monde knew that Mantle-ite was impenetrable.

  “How?” Vanka asked as he stood openmouthed, staring at the manhole.

  “I’ve altered the configuration of the Demi-Monde’s sewer system so that one comes up here under the floor of the Bank. But we’ve got to be quick; I programmed the amendment to last just twenty minutes. That’s enough time for us to get out, but hopefully not enough time for the SS to get here and discover how we escaped.” Ella addressed the surviving members of Trixie Dashwood’s WFA-D regiment. “If we go now, there’s a chance we can get out of here with our lives.”

  They didn’t need a second telling. The manhole cover was off in an instant and the hundred and ninety-odd survivors followed her through the sewers back to the Industrial Zone. It took twenty minutes of wading through shit and slime before they emerged and then, ever cautious, Ella insisted that it be she who was the first to climb the steps of the sewer pipe and push open the cover. When she poked her head out she was relieved to find that PINC hadn’t let her down: she was slap-bang in the middle of Warsaw’s Industrial Zone amid a very boisterous crowd of Varsovians. There were shouts of greeting and then Delegate Trotsky bustled over to meet the returning troops.

  “Ah, the great thaumaturgist herself,” he chortled as he helped haul Ella out from the sewer. “You have performed an amazing feat of magic, young lady.”

  “Is the Boundary Layer open?” asked Ella as she tried to brush some of the worst of the sewer’s muck from her overalls.

  “It opened just as you said it would.”

  “When?”

  “Twenty . . . thirty minutes ago.”

  “Have you gotten everybody through? The opening in the Boundary Layer will close after one hour.”

  “All those Pilgrims . . .”

  Pilgrims?

  “ . . . who wish to go are now on the other side of the Boundary. But please come and see for yourself; there are those who would like to thank their savior personally before the Boundary closes.”

  Exhausted and filthy though she was, Ella allowed herself to be led through the streets of the Industrial Zone toward the Boundary, and an amazing sight awaited her there. It was as though a five-mile-long curtain of the sheerest blue chiffon had been pulled back to reveal the vast, seemingly endless plains of the Great Beyond, and there, standing silent and uncertain in that great sea of grass and woodland, were the people of Warsaw. There were millions of them: men and women laden with their bundles and their cases, children sitting on carts holding their dolls and their toys, families surrounded by their horses and by baskets full of squawking chickens. Certainly they looked worried—many of them looked just plain terrified—but there was a resolve about them that Ella found strangely uplifting. Gazing out on this huge exodus, Ella had never imagined that people could be possessed of such an indomitable spirit that they could endure and survive all the hate and fury that the ForthRight had thrown at them and still have the strength and resolve to take on a new adventure.

  Colonel Dabrowski was there with the migrants, leaning on the shoulder of a young woman. He saluted Ella as she passed. He looked spent but happy enough; perhaps, she thought, that was what Dabrowski needed, a fresh start away from all the killing and the violence.

  As she walked toward the open Boundary, the crowd parted before her, the men and women of the WFA following Dabrowski’s lead and saluting her. It was a surreal moment and not one she particularly enjoyed; it was too embarrassing for that.

  Trotsky brought Ella to a halt at the very edge of the Boundary and then in a loud voice addressed the people of Warsaw. “Lady IMmanual . . .”

  Lady IMmanual? Where did that come from?

  “ . . . you have revealed yourself to be our most Revered Messiah, sent by ABBA to lead the people of Warsaw from the jaws of death to a new life in a new world. For that we give thanks and the assurance that you will never be forgotten.” With that he knelt before her and kissed her hand. As one, everyone else knelt.

  All Ella could do was stand and shuffle her feet uncomfortably.

  “Will you say something before we leave this world of strife forever?” asked Trotsky.

  Now they want me to start making speeches. What do you say to people who are about to venture into the unknown?

  She turned toward the kneeling crowd, looking out over the millions of people. Suddenly she remembered a long, long time ago standing in this very spot with her people bowed before her. But she hadn’t been Ella Thomas, she’d been . . .

  Who?

  Then she had stood before her kneeling worshippers naked, shaven, her skin dyed a deep crimson and black snakes tattooed over her body. She could see herself; it was a revelation so real that it transcended déjà vu. It was so real that it was déjà vécu: the feeling that she had already lived . . . already lived as some type of pagan god
dess.

  Lilith . . .

  And then in an instant the vision was gone, but the memory brought a change in her. Now the words simply flowed out. “We are very different,” she said in her loudest voice. “The Demi-Monde is not my home and I came here reluctantly. But in the Demi-Monde, living alongside the people of Warsaw, I have learned many lessons. And the most important of these is that every man, woman and child, no matter how they are created and no matter how they look or think, deserves an opportunity to live without fear of persecution. My heart goes out to all those of you who have lost loved ones . . .” She had to stop for a moment as the memory of all those poor men and women being murdered by the SS flashed before her eyes. “But now, thanks to ABBA and the IM Manual, you have all been offered a new start in a new world. I beg you, make this world one where there is no hatred and no animosity. Make it a world of tolerance and understanding, a world where differences unite men and women rather than divide them, where everyone, no matter what their color or their gender, is treated equally. You have an opportunity to make a new world and I call on you to make it not only a new world but also a just and a peaceful world. May ABBA be with you all.”

  Trotsky stood up and bowed. “We will always give thanks to the Lord ABBA and his most Holy Daughter, the one He sent to save us and to lead us to the Promised Land, our Messiah: the Lady IMmanual. Henceforward we will keep this day holy. Henceforth this will be the PassOver, the day when the people blessed by the Lady IMmanual passed over from the Demi-Monde into the Promised Land.”

  Sermon over, her congregation had got back to its feet and its members busied themselves making their final preparations for what they were calling the Great Pilgrimage. Ella sidled up to Trotsky.

  “Delegate Trotsky,” she said quietly, “before you go I would like your advice.”

  “Yes, my Lady.”

  “You are a very knowledgeable man, so tell me why someone as important as Aaliz Heydrich should have been taken to a place called ExterSteine.”

  “ExterSteine is a place of immense occult significance, my Lady; it is UnFunDaMentalism’s holiest of holies. For Aaliz Heydrich to have been taken there means she is to be involved in one of Aleister Crowley’s despicable rites, and as it is so close to Spring Eve—”